Happy New Year!

What am I doing in the office in the middle of the night, when the old year ends and the world welcomes the new one.

Police officers, medical workers and journalists are here to make sure people are safe and informed when all else seems to break lose in the middle of all the merriment.

Happy New Year to one and all!

Moleskine

I got my first Moleskine (VAN GOGH MEMO—POCKETS: 6 cardboard and cloth pockets to hold tickets, documents, memories) from Inday last Christmas.

When I read the history of the notebook, I thought of giving myself a gift like the ones on the left.

The one on top is Pablo Picasso's Notebook No. 53 (June-September 1912, 9 x 13.5 cm kept in the Musée National Picasso of Paris), while the second one is the sketchbook of Vincent van Gogh (1888–1890) kept in the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam.

MOLESKINE IS THE LEGENDARY NOTEBOOK, USED BY EUROPEAN ARTISTS AND THINKERS FOR THE PAST TWO CENTURIES, FROM VAN GOGH TO PICASSO, FROM ERNEST HEMINGWAY TO BRUCE CHATWIN.

This trusty, pocket-size travel companion held sketches,
notes, stories and ideas before they were turned into
famous images or pages of beloved books.

Originally produced by small French bookbinders who
supplied the Parisian stationery shops frequented by the
international avant-garde, by the end of the twentieth
century the Moleskine notebook was no longer available.
In 1986, the last manufacturer of Moleskine, a family
operation in Tours, closed its shutters forever.

“Le vrai Moleskine n’est plus” were the lapidary words
of the owner of the stationery shop in Rue de l’Ancienne
Comédie where Chatwin stocked up on the notebooks.
The English writer had ordered a hundred of them before
leaving for Australia: he bought up all the Moleskine
that he could find, but they were not enough.

In 1998, a small Milanese publisher brought Moleskine
back again. As the self-effacing keeper of an extraordinary
tradition, Moleskine once again began to travel the globe.
To capture reality on the move, pin down details, impress
upon paper unique aspects of experience: Moleskine
is a reservoir of ideas and feelings, a battery that stores
discoveries and perceptions, and whose energy can be
tapped over time.

The legendary black notebook is once again being passed
from one pocket to the next; with its various different page
styles it accompanies the creative professions and the
imagination of our time. The adventure of Moleskine
continues, and its still-blank pages will tell the rest.